Liz Fogarty, an assistant professor of education at the University of St. Thomas, spoke with the Minnesota Star Tribune about a proposed Minnesota bill that would require cursive instruction in elementary schools. Fogarty noted that while cursive can still have value, it is not among the most essential skills for students today, as educators continue balancing traditional instruction with modern classroom priorities.
From the article:
While the University of St. Thomas still instructs its future educators on how to teach cursive alongside print handwriting, “we don’t spend much time on it,” said Liz Fogarty, an assistant professor of education in the School of Education.
“There’s not a lot of evidence that says that students need this for the sake of learning,” she said, adding that while some value it for nostalgia or reading historical documents, “one of the tricky parts of education and being an educator is predicting the skills that students will need in their future. It can be a really difficult gamble.”
Fogarty remembers working for a principal who wanted her to teach an hour of cursive every day. Adding cursive should be a more nuanced decision that she believes should be left to individual educators who know their students.
“I don’t put this in the pile of things that students most need,” she said.
